Overview
Consisting of monologues from beyond the grave by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, this vivid psycho-drama explores the struggles of the artist under Soviet rule and seamlessly blends hindsight, guilt, and tricks of memory. Though the struggles of Soviet life—the terror, the deprivation, the disappeared—haunt each piece, a Shostakovian vitality, acerbic wit, and mischief are also present: Hamlet farts through a flute, Stalin plays the triangle, a sparrow defecates on a musical score, and the composer brags he can light a campfire with one match in the middle of a gale.Reviews
“Lively and passionate. . . . [Nuncle Music is] about Shostakovich, but also about all of us.â€Â —Rory Waterman, poet in resident, EnglandAuthor Biography
Gareth Reeves is the author of two collections of poetry, Listening In and Real Stories, as well as two books on T. S. Eliot and numerous essays on 19th- and 20th-century poetry. He is the former reader in English at Durham University, where he taught a creative writing course in poetry.
